Best SSD for system drive

[P4-630]

905p or DC 4800/5800 versions.

Some no longer available to buy or others at 2000 EUR and up...

I will search a bit better once I will purchase parts for my new build.

 

[dgianstefani]

Some no longer available to buy or others at 2000 EUR and up...

905p is £420 for 960 GB. Reasonable considering 120 GB is £70. P1600X is gen 2 905p is tweaked gen 1, but there aren't major differences.

Bearing in mind of course that these have endurance measured in petabytes.

The 4800/5800X have a super premium price because they are 1) enterprise tier, like the P1600X, and 2) literally the best, even four years later. Nothing has even come close to touching them.

 

[unwind-protect]

I could get an Intel Optane P1600X 118GB for 150 EUROS, but I won't , because 118GB is not enough as OS drive imo...

I have a 80 GB C: on my gaming install. Win 10. Everything relocated to other drives that can be relocated, including parts of my homedir. It is getting very tight, but I would trust 118 GB to do the job.

Also in the US that drive is cheaper, $70:

https://www.amazon.com/Intel-OPTANE-P1600X-118GB-SINGLEPACK/dp/B09MSB59SK/ref=sr_1_1

 

[Waldorf]

@dgianstefani
for me:
sure would i like to have drives with better perf/endurance like slc/optane etc,
but not at the cost ratio, given the same funds.

as admins like to say:
if its important, its backed up.
and all of my 3 nand drives that died, had controller failures, so drive endurance made no difference,
but showed me i prefer to have multiple not the "best" drives, and can backup stuff/image the os,
instead of having just a single drive (that i hope, wont give out by chance).

and thats why i try to offer hw to give folks another option, even if its not a "100" match,
as sometimes this makes ppl think ("i dont have a backup") and possibly lead to change their priorities (to say it simple)..

 

[P4-630]

Also in the US that drive is cheaper, $70:

https://www.amazon.com/Intel-OPTANE-P1600X-118GB-SINGLEPACK/dp/B09MSB59SK/ref=sr_1_1

It sends me to the Dutch amazon...

 

[massaker]

It sends me to the Dutch amazon...

And ME to German Amazon ) ->

It's about 82 Euros now, as you can see - i have already bought it on 18 Juli 2023, click:

And YES, it was cheaper last summer (as all other SSDs as well).

 

[chrcoluk]

If you don't have a valid reason, I don't see why you shouldn't continue using your Samsung 970 PRO 512GB for boot/system/program device. If you need bigger size SSD for games/media storage just bought never mind which name model with capacity that you need at price of your budget.

This, I partition my 1TB 980 Pro so the system drive is only a couple of hundred gigs anyway.

However I suppose if you limited on M.2 slots, then I can see why you want to replace.

Bigger SLC allows bigger write bursts without slowdown, but smaller SLC seems improve native writing speed after SLC is exhausted, can see this in many TPU reviews.

I very rarely exhaust write speeds on my NVME drives. The only scenario I think I would do it is copying from one NVME to another, something I think I only did briefly after installing my SN850X (moving some steam games).

For reference my 980 Pro.

 

[dgianstefani]

Optane also has a different approach to writing data than NAND flash, it can modify individual bits while NAND erases and rewrites the whole block to change one bit. This means that even if write endurance was the same (not even close) for the two technologies, Optane would still have a greater real life endurance, because it's more efficient with write targeting.

Along with the performance difference, mixed read/write, latency, and... well...

Read is significantly better on Optane.

Write can be similar for the platforms, depending on the queue depth and if any read operations are mixed in, where mixed loads become much slower on NAND.

 

[jarablue]

I get 1,550,000 million random read iops on the 990 pro. Yours is showing 113,702. I think the 990 pro random read is faster here. Unless I am reading wrong? This is random 4k.

 

[massaker]

...This is random 4k.

No, it's theoretical maximum at very high queue depth with many threads (good to know for server, meaningless for normal user).
At Q1T1 my 990Pro has about 24-25K IOPs from pSLC (fresh written data) and about 17K IOPs regular (from TLC). And these are the very best results for NAND-SSD.
The most popular "normal" flagship SSD like his SN859X or, say, KC3000 do ~20-22K IOPs from pSLC (as you see he has 20,8K) and ~14-15K from TLC.

 

[dgianstefani]

I get 1,550,000 million random read iops on the 990 pro. Yours is showing 113,702. I think the 990 pro random read is faster here. Unless I am reading wrong? This is random 4k.

At queue depth 1 thread count 1?

 

[Waldorf]

just many ppl dont understand that endurance doesnt equal reliability.

all drives that died on me had+80% life left (heavy use/smaller sized),
and even data center/enterprise (as in quality drives) have a quarter of all failures caused by controller death.

my now 4y old 250gb 970 evo that ws used as os drive for over 1y, then as data drive,
then 2 more years as crap drive (dl/temp/4K shadow files for rec/editing), and now as 3rd backup drive,
has just seen 8TB written.
so i dont see long term endurance, even for TLC, being the big issue anymore for the normal/avg user...

and no, "we" in forums like this (and others), dont count as those ...


i would have gladly gotten an intel for sys drive, as i liked the 4k random numbers,
if they only had 250gb or better ~4-500, as i had a few times where i had to use the os drive for storage/data backup,
and since decided to have +200gb at min, for it..

but like dg/others said, for OP the optane should be a pretty good match, given multiple other drives to cover
gmes/backup etc..

 

[dgianstefani]

just many ppl dont understand that endurance doesnt equal reliability.

all drives that died on me had+80% life left (heavy use/smaller sized),
and even data center/enterprise (as in quality drives) have a quarter of all failures caused by controller death.

25% of failures caused by controller is still the minority. This means 75% of drives were from something other than controller.

PCIe Gen 5 drives are pushing 10-15 W, much of that from the controller.

The P1600X has a peak of 5 W, and most of that is the Optane silicon, so I doubt the controller is going to up and die anytime soon. Heat kills controllers, and modern drives run hot to get that extra QD32 Sequential speed that is irrelevant to 90% of tasks.

 

[SPDIF]

4K random numbers are playing absolutely no role in every day usage of your computer... It's just a benchmark thingy.
Just use your SSD where it's meant for, and be happy you have a good and fast SSD in your PC. There is no BEST one, just use the one you feel good with.

They are hundred time better and faster then the old HDD, but even that is not good enough nowadays. I know there are much faster SSD available out there, then what i use. But i do not feel the need to replace them for higher 4K speeds... And then also have to see they not become too hot, and even need to have a active cooling solution to keep them cool.

In a nutshell it sits al between the ears of the user.

 

[dgianstefani]

4K random numbers are playing absolutely no role in every day usage of your computer... It's just a benchmark thingy.
Just use your SSD where it's meant for, and be happy you have a good and fast SSD in your PC. There is no BEST one, just use the one you feel good with.

They are hundred time better and faster then the old HDD, but even that is not good enough nowadays. I know there are much faster SSD available out there, then what i use. But i do not feel the need to replace them for higher 4K speeds... And then also have to see they not become too hot, and even need to have a active cooling solution to keep them cool.

In a nutshell it sits al between the ears of the user.

This is misinformation.

 

[SPDIF]

You anyway will not feel or see any difference in daily usage. Only for heavy and professional usage do you need this, but for a home user...

 

[Waldorf]

@SPDIF
unless transferring +50GB,faster drives usually dont become hotter (with the same cooling),as they need less time to complete the task..
ignoring that most decent boards come with heatsink covers for M.2 drives, and sata drives staying inside a "high end" rig with big cpu/gpu heating up the case,
can get hotter than most m.2 used with covers/heatsink..

start making images from your os, or do some 4K editing, especially with shadow files enabled,
all stuff no being "pro user" stuff, and it will show...

 

[dgianstefani]

https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/products/internal-hard-drive/benchmarks/?benchmark=rand50#sort=-randread50&page=1

Interesting to see the P1600X top the charts.

3x faster than the next fastest drive.

Including all those PCIe 5.0 drives.

In fact according to their testing the Gen 4 drives have better random read, but they're all around 500 MB/s, can't touch Optane, which incidentally doesn't change speed regardless of how full or empty it is.

905p doesn't even give up the random writes. Though from memory in many ways it's a bit slower than the P1600X which is second gen Optane.

 

[jarablue]

You anyway will not feel or see any difference in daily usage. Only for heavy and professional usage do you need this, but for a home user...

Right. Optane on a win11 build for gaming you will notice 0 difference in anything from a 990 pro..

 

[dgianstefani]

Right. Optane on a win11 build for gaming you will notice 0 difference in anything from a 990 pro..

Oh. And you have Optane?

I do.

https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/products/compare/P7mmP6,34ytt6,MmP8TW/

Here's how they compare.

 

[jarablue]

Oh. And you have Optane?

I do.

https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/products/compare/P7mmP6,34ytt6,MmP8TW/

Here's how they compare.

I am sure it loads games and game levels hours faster. Tell me how much more instant it opens apps? Placebo at best. And it's a 100gig drive. How much sequential data are you writing? 100 gig...really? You can have what? 1 game on it? NO thanks. I'll take a 990 pro 1,600,000 random read iops any day over having a 100gig drive...which is nothing for todays market.

 

[dgianstefani]

I am sure it loads games and game levels hours faster. Tell me how much more instant it opens apps? Placebo at best. And it's a 100gig drive. How much sequential data are you writing? 100 gig...really? You can have what? 1 game on it? NO thanks. I'll take a 990 pro 1,600,000 random read iops any day over having a 100gig drive...which is nothing for todays market.

Sure buddy.

By the way they come in 1.5 TB too for less than £500.

Write endurance in petabytes.

Or 3.6 TB if you can afford, enterprise only.

But as usual, people who have never used the tech feel qualified to give their opinions.

 

[jarablue]

Sure buddy.

By the way they come in 1.5 TB too.

Or 3.6 TB if you can afford, enterprise only.

It's a fact. It's not sure buddy. The cost of the drive and the size is just not worth it in real world difference.

If you are benchmarking only then yes. Real world performance, no. Anyways you can choose to believe whatever you want. My games load near instant. You're gonna tell me on optane it's going to be more than near instant? No. Sorry.

 

[dgianstefani]

It's a fact. It's not sure buddy. The cost of the drive and the size is just not worth it in real world difference.

If you are benchmarking only then yes. Real world performance, no. Anyways you can choose to believe whatever you want.

You said it.

I'm sure your NAND will serve you well, or good enough.

 

[mama]

Would buy NV2 or KC3000, but for storage only

I have the 1TB KC3000 for my windows startup. Seems fine. I did recently notice it's now at 99% health.